MILITARY LOGISTICS, FISCAL CAPACITY AND INSTITUTIONAL EFFICIENCY: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF IMPERIAL DEFENCE BURDENS IN MACEDONIA (MACEDONIAN, ROMAN, BYZANTINE AND OTTOMAN EMPIRES)
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Level 5 by design analogy (CEBM non-clinical): comparative historical synthesis and conceptual framework based on secondary source reconstructions.
OpenAlex W7140024371 · doi:10.35120/sciencej0501107b
What was done
The author performed a comparative historical analysis examining four empires that governed the territory of Macedonia: the Macedonian Empire (under Philip II and Alexander III), the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. The study synthesized secondary quantitative reconstructions from economic historians, available fiscal documentation, and institutional-military literature to assess the relationship between military expenditure, logistical frameworks, and state stability without relying on direct modern GDP metrics.
What was found
The abstract reports no raw numbers or quantitative statistics. Across all four empires, military spending constituted the primary share of public expenditure, operating under distinct mechanisms: Macedonian mobility and conquest extraction, Roman institutionalized supply networks (*annona militaris*), Byzantine thematic land allocation with centralized reserves, and Ottoman *timar* structures transitioning toward centralized funding. The study concluded that state durability correlated with institutional coordination and logistical efficiency rather than the absolute percentage of economic output spent on defense.
Why it matters
The paper refines fiscal-military state theory by proposing an institutional-logistical efficiency framework, showing that administrative capacity and supply coherence matter more for imperial sustainability than aggregate defense spending.
Limits
The study is fundamentally limited by the absence of direct, continuous macroeconomic and GDP data for ancient and medieval societies, necessitating reliance on secondary historical estimates. Findings are derived from a qualitative comparative synthesis focused on a single geographic region (Macedonia), which may limit generalizability across broader imperial contexts.
Cited by
- supports In the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire, the army was the single largest expenditure of the state.